{news} Correcting Van Nunes's lies about Green Partform "Supporting Hezbollah"

[Green Party-CT]

Dear Greens,  I must sadly correct a smear by a candidate for National Committee, an Amy Van Nunes at our state Convention. Ms Van Nunes, who was censured by our state party for over a year, but who now is reinstated ,said that the Green Party platform supported  Hezbollah instead of taking a neutral stance in the Middle East in her speech for her to become a National Committee leader on April 21, 2007. This speech was recorded for two public access shows that could be seen by thousands and damage our reputation as both a state and national party. With the world wide web, these damaging words could be seen world wide.     Our state and national Platform does not even mention "Hezbollah",but her wild and baseless charge is a pattern of personal problems which lead her to be censured by our state party and sadly her comments and other wild charges has made me ask that we reconsider our mistake of her being the only alternative on our National Committee.  With many new Greens
 at the convention, most could not see how this ONE person who has been damaging our state party and driving long standing Greens out, could   be a factor on a national committee and repeatedly damage our state party.   I do this with a heavy heart and no sense of revenge,but an honest caring of our state and national party.   i will ask that that the national committee not 'seat her" or add her to the national email list serve until our state party resolves this destructive decision.   I will ask our state party to reconsider fully the consequences of placing so much power in the hands of someone who was just censured after years of personal problems and seems to have no regrets of her ongoing actions.    I welcome feedback on a state and national level.Many people have worked long and hard on our platform and I am sadden that someone has chosen either not to read it or chosen to exploit and try and hurt the party.
   
  Tim McKee
  CT
  860-643-2282
   
  http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/democracy.html#307394
     2. A Real Road to Peace in the Middle East  The Green Party of the United States recognizes that our greatest contribution to peace in the Middle East will come through our impact on U.S. policy in the region.
  Our commitments to ecological wisdom, social justice, grass-roots democracy, and non-violence compel us to oppose U.S. government support for "friendly" regimes, both in Israel and in the Arab world, whenever those regimes violate human rights, international law, and existing treaties. Those same values compel us to support popular movements for peace and demilitarization, especially those that reach across the lines of conflict to engage both Palestinians and Israelis of good will.
  
        
a. We reaffirm the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, which precludes the self-determination of one at the expense of the other. We recognize the historical and contemporary cultural diversity of Israeli-Palestinian society, including the religious heritage of Jews, Christians, Muslims and others. This is a significant part of the rich cultural legacy of all these peoples and it must be respected. To ensure this, we support equality before international law rather than appeals to religious faith as the fair basis on which claims to the land of Palestine-Israel are resolved.   
  
b. We recognize that Jewish insecurity and fear of non-Jews is understandable in light of Jewish history of horrific oppression in Europe. However, we oppose as both discriminatory and ultimately self-defeating the position that Jews would be fundamentally threatened by the implementation of full rights to Palestinian-Israelis and Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homes. As U.S. Greens, we refuse to impose our views on the people of the region; rather, we would turn the U.S. government towards a new policy, which itself recognizes the equality, humanity, and civil rights of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and all others who live in the region, and which seeks to build confidence in prospects for secular democracy.   
  
c. We reaffirm the right and feasibility of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel. We acknowledge the significant challenges of equity and restitution this policy would encounter and call on the U.S. government to make resolution of these challenges a central goal of our diplomacy in the region.   
  
d. We reject the U.S.' unbalanced financial and military support of Israel while Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We call on the U.S. President and Congress to end all military aid to Israel, shifting much of that aid to ecologically appropriate local projects for economic and social development for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories and dismantles the separation wall, we call on our government to suspend all other foreign aid to Israel as well.   
  
e. We demand that the U.S. government end its veto of Security Council resolutions pertaining to Israel. We urge our government to join with the U.N. to secure the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 boundaries and to withhold its grants and loans to Israel until this withdrawal is undertaken.   
  
f. We recognize the limited natural resources in Palestine-Israel and the necessity of creating an Arab/Israeli commission to negotiate the sharing of water by both nationalities.   
  
g. We support a much stronger and supportive U.S. position with respect to all United Nations, European Union, and Arab League initiatives that seek a negotiated peace, and we support significantly greater U.S. financial support for such non-military solutions. We call for an immediate U.N.-sponsored, multinational peacekeeping and protection force in the Palestinian territories with the mandate to initiate a conflict-resolution commission.   
  
h. We call on the foreign and military affairs committees of the U.S. House and Senate to conduct full hearings on the status of human rights and war crimes in Palestine/Israel.   
  
i. We call on congressional intelligence committees to conduct full and public hearings on the development and deployment of weapons of mass destruction, whether by the Israeli military, irregular militias, or Arab states. It should be U.S. policy to seek the removal and/or destruction of all such weapons of mass death wherever they are found.   
  
j. We call for the complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall in the occupied West Bank. A Green policy toward Israel and Palestine would offer such incentives for peace and mutual security that the wall would be unnecessary, and seen for what it is... an obstacle to peace and a unilateral escalation of conflict.   
  
k. We know that significant international opinion is committed to a two-state solution. Yet, we recognize that the two-state solution may be increasingly unrealistic in the face of economic and social conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Given this reality, we would consider support for a U.S. foreign policy that promotes serious reconsideration of the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the national home of both peoples, with Jerusalem as its capital. We encourage a new U.S. diplomatic initiative to begin the long process of negotiation, laying the groundwork for such a single-state constitution.   
  
l. We recognize that such a state might take many forms, such as what might emerge from careful consideration of the Swiss model. The eventual model that is chosen must be decided by the peoples themselves. We realize the enormous hostilities that now exist between the two peoples, but history tells us that these are not insurmountable among peace-seeking people.   
  
m. As an integral part of peace negotiations and the transition to peaceful democracy, we call for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose inaugurating action would be mutual acknowledgement by Israelis and Palestinians that they have the same basic rights, including the right to exist in the same, secure place. 
  3. Foreign Policy - Trade
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